My very favorite sign is courtesy of the New Mexico Highway Department, Existentialist Division:
Gusty Winds May Exist
You need deep topics to consider while driving our long, empty roads, and this one is as good as any.
My second favorite is probably the sign in the bathrooms of the Holiday Inn in Athens, GA:
**Dear Guest:
Due to the popularity of our guestroom amenities, our Housekeeping Department now offers these items for sale:
Bath Towels: $9.00 Bath Mats $12.00
Hand Towels: $5.00 Face Cloths: $2.00
Pillows: $15.00
Each guest room attendant is responsible for maintaining the guest room items. Should you decide to take these articles from your room instead of obtaining them from the Executive Housekeeper, we will assume you approve a corresponding charge to your account.
Thank you.**
That’s the fanciest way I’ve ever seen of saying, “Don’t steal; we’ll charge you for it.” I took a picture of the sign and left it there. If a pillow costs $15.00, God alone knows what they’d have charged for a custom-made sign!
I think the funniest sign I saw was when driving recently. There is a left turn lane with a sign that says “Left Turn Only”. RIGHT NEXT TO IT is a sign that says “No left turns 7AM to 6AM” you can’t go straight cuz you’ll hit the median. Welcome to the twilight zone…
My favorite sign was the one at the health club that said:[ul]Maintain hydration in times of increased temperature[/ul]In other words:[ul]Drink lots of water when it’s hot[/ul]We’re trying to deal with people who are too stupid to know when to drink water, and we use the word “hydration”!?
The warning on the pillow isn’t very specific, but I can guess what it means: a large number of fires are caused each year by people who fall asleep while smoking a cigarette. The implied warning is, “Don’t smoke in bed- if you do, and you nod off, ths pillow is liable to catch fire, and the rest of the room will do the same.”
As for ice in Houston… look, I live in Austin, Texas, and I can tell you this: Texas is NOT in the tropics! We may have very hot summers and relatively mild winters (we’ve only gotten REAL snow once in the 16 years I’ve lived here), but there are 3-5 days each winter when Austin’s roads roads ice over, and when that happens, there are invariably dozens of accidents. I’d guess that Houston’s road conditions are similar in the winter- maybe worse, since they’re on the coast and get more rain (which can quickly turn to a sheet of ice in the winter).
Did you see Cecil’s column on “black ice”? We get it here, too. Not as often as Chicagoans, obviously, but often enough that warning signs are far from useless.